


We Don't Get A Fairytale Ending

by smileybagel



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Drabble, Gore, Minor Character Death, Murder, Panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6380728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileybagel/pseuds/smileybagel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's blood everywhere, and a child's finger painting made from it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Don't Get A Fairytale Ending

**Author's Note:**

> I was toying with the idea of a darker Angel who's more like her dad than anyone wants her to be.

Blood paints her skin with a splash, the iron smell quickly overtaking her senses and overwhelming her. She covers her mouth with a trembling hand, her father doing the same in the corner, though he does it more to prevent bile that’s threatening to spill from his lips.

The blue of Angel’s tattoo glows, reflecting off of her mother’s blood.

Angel thinks it looks beautiful.

“A- Angel sweetie, _sweetheart_ , come over here, okay? C- come to daddy, baby girl.” Jack reaches out to her, nerves making him tremble and nearly vibrate out of his skin. His _wife_ is a smoldering pile of gore on the ground, completely unrecognizable from the woman she once was. His daughter is-

_God._

Angel’s kneeling down, fingers splaying in a puddle of blood. She uses her mother’s blood to paint on the floor and Jack nearly loses what’s left in his stomach at the sight.

“Angel,” He starts again, and flinches when Angel looks up at him with a jolt. As if breaking out of a trance, her lips begin to tremble and fat tears well up in her eyes. They spill down her cheeks with ease and leave streaks through the blood before she opens her mouth to let loose a sob, her small legs carrying her to her father with haste, arms outstretched towards him. “Oh _pumpkin_.”

Jack picks her up even though his arms feel like lead and his heart is hammering in his chest. He’s positive Angel can feel the frantic beating as he holds her close to him, his hand carding through her hair as she cries into his neck. Angel’s body shakes with the strength of her sobbing, little hiccups escaping her in between bouts of tears.

“It _hurts_ , daddy.” She says, voice warbling and muffled by his neck. “Make it _stop_.”

“What hurts, sweetheart?” Jack can’t help but gaze at the ground, stomach churning once more at the sight of the gore. He holds Angel tighter and breathes in the scent of her hair to calm himself.

“My a- arm, daddy, my arm.” Jack pulls back to look at her left arm, stomach twisting in knots as he looks at the swirling, glowing tattoos. She’d had them at birth and he knew, Jack _knew_ what they were and what they meant, but had never done anything about them. But now they’re alight with newly awakened power, casting a dull glow on everything in the room. Jack swallows around the lump in his throat and rubs his palm over his daughter’s arm, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“I know, Angel,” Jack pulls her in close again and starts rocking her. Angel buries her face in Jack’s neck again and wraps her arms around him as best as she can. After a moment as her sobs quiet down, she pulls away and cranes her neck around to look at the corpse of her mother.

“Angel, don’t-” Jack begins, but stops when Angel’s hand clenches in his sweater, leaving a bloody smudge on the cloth.

“Did I do that, daddy?” Her baby blues lock onto her deceased mother and Jack swears he sees _fascination_ in them. Her tattoos glow impossibly brighter.

“…Yeah, baby, you did.” He answers her finally, voice barely above a whisper.

Angel is quiet for a long time, tear-stained cheeks flushed red and bottom lip between her teeth. When she speaks, Jack feels his heart stop.

Angel’s hand clenches tighter in her father’s sweater. “She was making me so _mad_. I just wanted her to stop talking.”

“She’s _dead_ , Angel. Your mother is _dead_.” Jack’s chest tightens as he takes that in fully, takes in the fact that his wife is dead and smoldering on the floor and that his _daughter_ is the one responsible.

Angel hums, relaxing her hold on Jack’s sweater as she continues to look at her mother’s remains. She flinches every so often, cradling her left arm between her chest and Jack’s. Tears being to well up again.

“I know.” Angel looks at her father once more, a few tears falling. “My arm still hurts, daddy.”

“Is that why you’re crying, baby? Not because of mommy?”

Angel nods once and that’s the end of it. Jack’s wife is cremated privately, cause of death unlisted in the official records, and everything about her is burned when Jack comes into power as CEO.

His daughter’s sin is only theirs to hold onto. Jack makes sure of it, protects her, keeps her powers hidden from the public eye. But she is a _Siren_.

Mythology tells Jack that sirens lure their prey into a false sense of security before eating them whole or ripping their throats out. He’s not sure if that applies to these cosmic, Eridium charged creatures, but he remembers that every time Angel smiles sweetly at him.

Angel grows and her power multiplies. She sees the blood on her father as he returns from a disastrous visit to Concordia with a hired Vault Hunter. She smiles at him, cups his cheeks between pale, tattooed hands, and brings their foreheads together.

“It feels _good_ , doesn’t it?”

Jack exhales, remembers his wife’s corpse, and whispers,

“ _Yes._ ”


End file.
